Darwinism, Evolution and Intelligent Design

William Haines, Derek Dey, Jonathan Wells, Colin Turfus, Dominic, and James Powell December 8, 2011

This email exchange which began on November 17th titled Euro Zone Thoughts and then moved on to explore Darwinism, Evolution and Intelligent Design

……. I’ll take a look at EU laws which were being formulated with regard to making it compulsory to teach Darwinism in schools. This was in progress two years ago but I don't know what the conclusion was. In addition William asks why Unificationists have problems with evolutionary theory. -

In discussion with others I think it fair to take DP as ‘DP + UC Thought + Sun Myung Moon’s (SMM) words’ as the Principle.

In this, I have looked at all, including Cheon Seong Gyeong (CSG) Book 11 The Root of the Universe. Here are three statements from CSG.

1. Left-wing ideology, in particular, has attained world- wide supremacy through evolutionary theory.

2. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, with humanism as its basis, played a major role in destroying Christianity, tying and hanging it by the neck. This theory claimed there was no God.

3. The ideological world has been plunged into contradiction and chaos by current evolutionary theory, dialectical materialism, epistemology, spiritual-ism and so on.

From this, SMM makes it clear evolutionary theories and communism combine and spearhead the Godless ideologies lying at the core of the 20th Century.

One problem mentioned is the failure to embrace Dual Characteristics (EP ODP) as the central creative source of all created things. In addition Darwin and Marxists fail to support the intelligence, love, and central meaning of creation - its teleology.

By failing to understand this point speciation is described as an evolutionary process proceeding from an amoeba, a tree like branching model which also states man morphed from monkeys - this is a violation of the first law.

Species have strict boundaries - and require dual characteristics and reciprocal relationship for genesis. There is no morphing of one life form into another. Darwin noticed himself that the fossil record revealed no evidence to support this and feared this alone would dismantle his theory. This strict boundary model however fits the Biblical model and supports Dual Characteristics i.e. Adam and Eve as the first progenitors of the human race. People come from people. Additionally Adam and Eve are systematically necessary for the theology of the fall and universal transmission of sin.

The distinction between species is very strict. (302-181, 1999.6.13) CSG

Evolutionists say that the amoeba evolved gradually into a higher animal, the monkey, and that the monkey evolved into the human being. CSG

Dual characteristics supports historical Adam and Eve and Genesis

Adam and Eve are necessary for the Fall - DP is systematic

The second law of thermodynamics cannot support growth - it requires field energy. Evolutionary theory is used to explain today’s world, but in order for amoebae to reproduce species that are greater than themselves in their present state, an extra input of energy must be added. In short, additional energy is necessary. Can the amoeba induce additional energy, all by itself, in order to develop? Does it have such ability? CSG

This need for extra energy points to questions about thermodynamics and to inherent directive nature and ideas concerning cellular consciousness described in UC Thought. In simple terms the cell lies embedded in field energy and participates in this additional source. UC Thought states DNA and the cell participate in an extended life field. In addition modern biology, chemistry and cellular sciences all support this as necessary for any developmental progress in cells, DNA and so on

The concept of Field energy supports proto-consciousness and links life to the field of consciousness which lies beyond as waves. Simply we are connected by this to the mind of God. It is a ‘by design’ and intention feature. In addition SMM states the atom is a mind-body reciprocal relationship - not simply matter.

Today’s physics has advanced to a point where it is asserting dualism, that all atoms have awareness. This logic is similar in essence to the Unification Church’s principle of dual characteristics. CSG

Therefore Intelligence/heart permeates the universe - this is necessary for inherent directive nature and the growth stages of indirect and direct dominion (DP) It is also necessary for any development of aesthetics which include a ‘by design’ and morally designed order. Otherwise there is only a humanistic field of relativity.

In addition, my own studies in biological developmental and psychological developmental theories all point to similar conclusions supported by the modern sciences from the 1990’s onwards. Almost every biologist, cellular chemist, an developmental researcher in chemistry psychology and so on state Darwinism is not even considered today because advances I science make him obsolete. Indeed SMM calls it an outdated idea - an archaic theory. (There are pages of scientists’ names who counter Darwin and affirm this)

Additionally, regarding John Bowlby’s work in his biography of Darwin we see profound psychological malaise emerging in Darwin’s life. He is marked as repressed, guilt driven, hysterical, and psychosomatic. Whilst accomplishing some works his perception judgement and insights are colored by these dynamics here revealed.

Some elements of his micro-evolutionary work and adaption - natural selection, may be still relevant but have to be reviewed and contextualized into a broader field of consideration as described above. However modern sciences with its advanced complexities and methods, the Principle, and perhaps a little prayer remain a more trustworthy methodology.

Unificationists are therefore wary of Darwin and the EU needs to look very carefully at their so called education policies lest we end up with ‘dumb and dumber.’

Derek, I wholeheartedly agree that the EU should not be imposing evolution on schools. Not because I object to the theory of evolution but because I think these things - the content of a school's curriculum - should not be decided at a continental level. This should be decided by schools taking into consideration the public exams that pupils will sit. The exam syllabus itself should be decided by examining boards and not by national or international governments.

Apart from that Father's portrayal of the theory of evolution is not what can be found in science textbooks:

"Evolutionists say that the amoeba evolved gradually into a higher animal, the monkey, and that the monkey evolved into the human being." CSG This is not the theory of evolution and not what evolutionists assert.

"Evolutionary theory is used to explain today’s world, but in order for amoebae to reproduce species that are greater than themselves in their present state, an extra input of energy must be added. In short, additional energy is necessary. Can the amoeba induce additional energy, all by itself, in order to develop? Does it have such ability?" CSG

The science of spontaneous or self generated order and non-linear thermodynamics shows that more complex things emerge from less complex things. This BBC documentary is well worth watching furnacetv.com/programmes/secret-life-of-chaos

So Darwin had problems in his life? So too did many scientists but that is irrelevant to the normal evaluation of their ideas. Einstein had a problematic sexual life. So??

"Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, with humanism as its basis, played a major role in destroying Christianity, tying and hanging it by the neck. This theory claimed there was no God."

First of all the theory is a scientific theory. It makes no claims about the existence or non existence of God. It just rejects separate creation by arguing that all life is intimately connected as it all has the same origin. Some religious people probably objected to Newton's theory of gravity as it removed the need for a God to keep the stars and planets in their proper orbits. As pointed out the Christians in the UK and USA found no problems accepting it as the process through which an immanent God worked. Even the Catholic church accepts the basic theory and doesn't find it undermines Christian faith. Personally I think evolution is what one would expect to find based on my reading of the Principle. But hey, let's not overwhelm people's email boxes by starting another discussion.

That the fundamentalist Christian churches in Korea couldn't cope with it because they were literalists is neither here nor there. If they were plunged into chaos and contradiction that only reveals a lack of theological and philosophical sophistication. It should be evaluated scientifically. Like all scientific theories it has been modified over the past 150 years but is still a fruitful research program or paradigm because a better one hasn't been proposed.

At the risk of being presumptuous (I don’t think we’ve met), I'm sending you some comments from my own area of expertise, evolution and Unification thought.

“It is only recently that literalist and fundamentalist Christians in the US have had problems mostly due to their essentialist philosophy.”

This is false. The movement to which William refers is young-Earth creationism, which IS a relatively recent (and predominantly American) factor in the Darwinian controversies. But theological opposition to Darwinism is both broader and older. See the following (which I wrote):

www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Creationism

Also see: www.discovery.org/a/102

On 11/20/11 William also wrote:

Darwin was a great biologist, a scientist and not a philosopher.

This is widely believed, but like the sentence quote above I think it is false. Darwin had surprisingly little evidence for his theory, which was incorrect in many essential respects. For example, he had absolutely no evidence for natural selection (he relied entirely on domestic breeding, which has never produced more than minor changes within existing species). His idea of heredity (an essential plank in his theory) was completely wrong (Mendel had a better one, and much of what is now credited to Darwin was actually Mendel’s doing — and Mendel rejected Darwinian evolution). I could go on, and have in many of my writings. For example (listing only those readily available online):

“Survival of the Fakest” www.discovery.org/a/1209

“Why Darwinism Is False” www.discovery.org/a/10661

Indeed, in my opinion as a Ph.D. biologist and theologian, Darwin’s theory of evolution was not empirical science, but applied materialistic philosophy:

“Darwin’s Straw God Argument” www.discovery.org/a/8101

“Evolution and Unification Thought” www.utitokyo.sakura.ne.jp/uti-index-papers-english01.html

Feel free to pass on the contents of this email to interested parties—though I would prefer that you remove my email address from it (I already spend too much of my day answering or deleting emails, and I’m way behind schedule on a major book project).

Thanks for responding. This was just the tail end of a discussion about some developments in European philosophy.

We did actually meet once - in UTS in 1992. I was working in the library office and you asked me what my thesis was on - Spontaneous order and Unificationism. We had a conversation about Adam Smith's invisible hand.

I am familiar with the intelligent design arguments. I was at an event in Oxford in 2007 where Mary Midgley's pamphlet Intelligent Design and Other Ideological Problems was launched. I was not persuaded by the ID people I spoke to who were there.

I remember reading your article in Dialogue and Alliance on the argument to design and mentioned it in my thesis: The argument from design cannot be used to disprove the existence of God as Jonathan Wells correctly points out.[1] Wells however wants to defend the argument to design which he claims was that used by the major theologians of the main branches of Christianity: If God exists, then human beings are designed.

Therefore, human beings are designed.

First of all just because God exists it doesn't follow that human beings are designed. I am not sure whether Wells wants to confine this premise to human beings or would also include amoeba. In any case, this is begging the question. Assuming what needs to be proved namely that God designed human beings. As Wells points out, "a denial of design, in the argument to design, is tantamount to a denial of God's existence." Thus if it is possible to show that order and complexity can be spontaneously generated without an external designer, God does not exist. The science of chaos and self-generated order provides many examples of how "cloud-like systems that have the power to look like clockwork mechanisms." There are many examples that we have examined of complex systems that look as though they have been designed but which have developed spontaneously.

Paul Davies skimmed through some examples in his now rather old book 'Cosmic Order'. So apart from the fine-tuning argument for the initial conditions of the big bang I don't think the design argument is useful. In fact I think it causes more problems than it solves such as the one that caused Darwin to lose his faith is traditional Christian doctrines: “I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars.” Furthermore I think the Principle is more compatible with evolution than it is with ID. This what I argued for in my thesis - UT provides a philosophical basis for spontaneous order and thus evolution that traditional Greek philosophy can't. E.g.

"The human mind imparts to every person a natural inclination to join with others in harmony. Likewise, positive and negative ions come together to form particular molecules, because within every one of them exists a rudimentary internal nature that guides them towards that end." EDP, 18

The IDN in everything means that naturally and spontaneously things move towards greater and greater levels of complexity. My thesis goes into all this in much more depth.

In the UK the theory of evolution has generally been accepted within Christian circles. You will be aware of Charles Kingsley's view: “It is just as noble a conception of Deity to believe that he created primal forms capable of self-development . . . as to believe that He required a fresh act of intervention to supply the gaps which He himself had made.” James Moore in The Post- Darwinian Controversies Cambridge, 1979, concluded, in the 19th century, “with a few exceptions the leading Christian thinkers in Great Britain and America came to terms quite readily with Darwinism and evolution.” Cardinal Newman, Archbishop Temple and other well known Christians found no conflict between the basic ideas of evolution and Christian thought. I am a member of St Edmund's College in Cambridge to which is attached the Faraday Institute. I have talked to several of the scholars there such as Denis Alexander and read their material and they are reclaiming Darwin for religion from Dawkins and his ilk. www.st- edmunds.cam.ac.uk/faraday/index.php

Considering he didn't have much evidence I think Darwin's theory was pretty impressive. Of course it has been modified but it seems to have been a very fruitful research program. He of course founded or greatly developed a number of other areas of biology such as ecology. Overall I find the attacks on Darwin rather peculiar reminiscent of the attacks of the Vatican on Galileo. No scientists include God in their theories or equations so I find it odd why Darwin is singled out. Maybe it is just a cultural thing. Evolution is part of the landscape of English philosophy and historiography from Bede to Hume. www.jstor.org/pss/3021094 Britain wasn't designed but its institutions evolved. As Hume's friend Adam Fergusan said, "Every step and every movement of the multitude, even in what are termed enlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future; and nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design." In the US I guess the society is more the product of design - the founding fathers designed a constitution - and I guess that has affected the mental landscape there. As I said in the UK the theory of evolution doesn't cause problems for Christians generally. Dawkins is not taken all that seriously as his philosophical and theological knowledge have been shown to be wanting. This is the sort of way these things are dealt with in British classrooms. Follow the link for the KS3 program. www.thewonderproject.co.uk/

Sorry, I forgot that we had met years ago.

> I remember reading your article in Dialogue and Alliance on the > argument to design and mentioned it in my thesis: > The argument from design cannot be used to disprove the existence of > God as Jonathan Wells correctly points out.[1] Wells however wants to > defend the argument to design which he claims was that used by the > major theologians of the main branches of Christianity: > > If God exists, then human beings are designed. > God exists. > Therefore, human beings are designed. > > First of all just because God exists it doesn't follow that human > beings are designed. I am not sure whether Wells wants to confine this > premise to human beings or would also include amoeba. In any case, > this is begging the question.

No, it's not begging the question. Begging the question means that the conclusion of an argument merely re-states a premise. For example,

God designed human beings. (Insert anything here.) Therefore, God designed human beings.

What I wrote, on the other hand, is a valid syllogism. Implied in the first premise (as is clear from my article in Dialogue and Alliance) is the God of the Old and New Testament, who designed us in His image and likeness. If such a God exists, then the conclusion follows by modus ponens.

Not only did the major theologians of the Christian tradition implicitly argue this way (i.e., their belief in God entailed the view that human beings were designed) -- so did John Henry Newman, whom you mistakenly cite in your defense. As Newman put it,

"I believe in design because I believe in God; not in a God because I see design." (Letters and Diaries, 25:97)

> [I]f it is possible to show that order and complexity can be spontaneously > generated without an external designer, God does not exist. The science of > chaos and self-generated order provides many examples of how "cloud-like > systems that have the power to look like clockwork mechanisms." There are many > examples that we have examined of complex systems that look as though they > have been designed but which have developed spontaneously

Order, complexity, and specified complexity are three different things. The order in a salt crystal emerges spontaneously, through natural law, from the characteristics of sodium and chlorine ions; the complexity of a pile of autumn leaves is due largely to chance; but the specified complexity of a sequence of nucleotides that encodes a functional protein does not emerge spontaneously from the characteristics of a DNA molecule, and given the finite age of the Earth it is too improbable to emerge by chance. Our universal human experience is that specified complexity requires intelligent design. See William Dembski's The Design Inference (1998) and Stephen Meyer's Signature in the Cell (2009).

> I am familiar with the intelligent design arguments. I was at an event in > Oxford in 2007 where Mary Midgley's pamphlet Intelligent Design and Other > Ideological Problems was launched. I was not persuaded by the ID people I > spoke to who were there.

Mary Midgley is not an intelligent design proponent. With whom did you speak in 2007? If you want to read something by a proponent of intelligent design,

I recommend, for starters, William Dembski's The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions about Intelligent Design (2004). Among other things, Dembski makes clear the distinction between order, complexity and design.

> Considering he didn't have much evidence I think Darwin's theory was > pretty impressive. Of course it has been modified but it seems to have > been a very fruitful research program.

Only if by "fruitful" you mean that several generations of scientists have lined their pockets at our expense by searching in vain for evidence to support Darwin's idea that all living things have descended from common ancestors by unguided natural processes such as mutation and selection.

The issue is not minor changes within existing species, which is completely uncontroversial and which Mendelian genetics explains much better anyway. Darwin did not write a book titled How Existing Species Change Over Time; he titled his book The Origin of Species.

Yet no one has ever observed the origin of a new species by selection (natural or artificial). Biologists have mutated fruit flies in all possible ways, and the only possible outcomes are normal fruit flies, defective fruit flies, or dead fruit flies. (The same has been demonstrated in roundworms, zebrafish, and mice.) And all the evidence for common ancestry reduces to homology (similarity), which is just as compatible with design as it is with common ancestry. See my Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design (2006).

> In the UK the theory of evolution has generally been accepted within > Christian circles.

This merely demonstrates the intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy of Christian circles in the UK. Theistic evolutionists such as Denis Alexander start by trusting the "scientific consensus," which historically has often turned out to be wrong. (The Church's big mistake in the Galileo affair was to side with the scientific consensus of the day, namely, Ptolemaic astronomy.) Then they (the theistic evolutionists) revise theology to accommodate it to the current scientific fad. As a scientist myself, I prefer to trust the evidence, and the evidence does not support Darwinian evolution. Finally, you wrote:

> I think the Principle is more compatible with evolution than it is with ID. > This is what I argued for in my thesis.

As I indicated above, I don't think you understand what ID is. And when you say "the Principle is more compatible with evolution" -- if by "evolution" you mean Darwinian evolution -- I could not disagree with you more.

Whereas it is obvious that the CSG cannot be referred to as a scientific source, let us not lose perspective. Without getting lost in details TF clearly points out the main problem with Darwinism: Its ideological and dogmatic nature.

William, there is a fundamental distinction between 1) "evolution" as a proven scientific (paleo-ontological) fact: The fossil evidence of slow progress in the development of biological species over millions of years (in discrete, distinctive steps) and 2) "evolution" as a hypothesis, as a model and as a dogma in the form of Neo-Darwinism (please note: it's an -ISM), holding that new species appear based on minimal-gradual (!) random mutation and natural selection --- ignoring and contradicting fundamental laws of quantum mechanics (wave function) and thermodynamics, the principle of cooperation and synchronicity among others - and last but not least: the characteristics of fossil evidence.

This crucial distinction is NOT made in many mainstream science papers and even less so in today's mass media. And we know that this lack of precision and mixing of terms is indeed intentional.

Let us remember that national socialism and communism both referred to Darwin to justify their murders. Karl Marx dedicated his work "Das Kapital" to Darwin, Hitler often mentions Darwin as authority in "Mein Kampf" (I've read it). Darwinism is a major pillar justifying today's moral relativism and the direct precursor of "Social Darwinism". Neither us nor school kids can afford being naively brainwashed here.

Concerning the scientific aspect: Your point about spontaneous complexity and non-linear thermodynamics is a nice try, but still remains a hypothesis desperately trying to explain randomness as a "creative force". Highly complex crystals and amazing molecular structures are formed this way, true that. But please note: There are still galaxies between complex structures and functional design, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics cannot be tricked WITHOUT an external source of a) information and b) energy - that's physics. So, here I recommend Dembski's notion of "Specified Complexity" - although his ideas still need further research and attention.

What makes the ideology of Darwinism unscientific is, that it disregards the standard procedure in the evolution of science: Let's face it: A fair professional assessment based on hard facts and calculations. (It's just as scientific as Marx' "Scientific Socialism".) First-class scientists get discredited and even dismissed from their jobs for criticising a long-held dogma.

Our Molecular-biologist Jonathan Wells has been doing great work in this field ("Icons of Evolution", "The politically incorrect guide to I.D."). Biology has yet to experience the revolution that Physics experienced already 100 years ago. It's established dogmas are remnants of the 19th century...

Charles Darwin: The very rare case of a British Cain-type thinker :) Derek Dey:

In terms of Darwinism I have not approached this topic from Darwinism alone, rather I come from an aesthetic background. This involves study in Weimar Classicism and the extension of philosophical ideas into developmental psychology and developmental biology which followed from there. In my explorations in these areas I have consistently found biologists, chemists, genetic scientists, psychologists, philosophers, and the cellular sciences, diverge entirely from basic Darwinist traditions. I am not completely uncritical of the church, however my work links well into elements of the Principle as I have described it i.e. DP-UC Thought-Smm's word. Most of these studies in aesthetics/the psychology of creativity, confirm notions such as inherent directive nature, growth stages or spiral development as I currently prefer, protoconsciousness, indirect dominion as a somewhat well designed developmental system, and updated Neo- Confucianism all of which point to the function of the dual characteristics in the principle of creation. (Li Chi is mentioned in UC Thought) This issue of creationism by the reciprocal relationships between dual characteristics is itself is well defined by SMM's words as found in the Cheong Seong Gyeong, Book 11 which adequately describes these elements and in addition makes the founders view on Darwinism very clear.

As Dominic noted, Darwinism supports/underpins National Socialism and Communism. My study in the seminary on the psychopathology of the fall with 50 out of 120 pages dedicated to the progressive dissolution of Hitler's character and diverted psychological development, confirms this. Hitlers life and psychological dissolution creates a template for the understanding of such profound malaise and psychological disruption applicable to many if not all authoritarian dictatorships and Darwin plays a role in this by separating physical resources from mental or spiritual realities. As a past lecturer in CAUSA I am also aware of other despotic systems which include Darwinisms as a resource.

Elements of the principle are systematically necessary for one another. It is an elegant architecture of interrelated and interactive systems. The question of distinct and strictly defined speciation in the Principle arising from the interaction of the dual characteristics, view mankind as a distinct creation having their genesis in Adam and Eve as does Biblical tradition and for a purpose. The cell as described in UC Thought belongs to a broader field energy or consciousness and must, if it is to participate in a broader order and connect, as it were, to the mind and heart of a creator. This is what my research into contemporary developmental biology and psychology tell me. This confirmation is possible now because of advances in science which Darwin had no access to and explains why so many biologists don't even talk about Darwin in their work. He is simply outdated and irrelevant. In addition this field connectivity is essential for the development of aesthetics. If there are no principles as described we are faced with relativity and dysfunction posing as art in much the same way Freud describes the arts and this points to despair. Without principles of creation and patterns of design and so forth as defined by many like Anton Ehrenzweig in his 'Hidden Order of Art,' who posits patterns even in the subconscious layers of artists and Hagman's developmental psychology of aesthetics, there can only be confusion in a humanistic field and constant failures in the building of what we call civilization.

Troubling to me, is the fact that William's posts include inaccurate sources and statements like, Darwinism defines the principle more adequately than the principle itself. In addition he posts, the Oriental/Korean mind is inadequate to come to terms with the intellectual refinement of the West, the deletion of Adam and Eve from his hypothesis, and other statements made elsewhere which seem to me to point to a broader work of near systematic deconstruction of the principle and its author. If William's work is defined as his own theory this is fine and I would defend his right to say whatever he chooses but if it is presented within the Unification Church and Lancaster Gate as the Principle it poses a significant ethical and intellectual dilemma for me. If it is this, it is quite disturbing. If it is otherwise, I retract all suspicions and make my apologies. In the meantime I agree with Jonathan Well's posts on Darwinism and with Dominic's statements and, like Jonathan, strongly disagree with Williams thinking. My own field is in aesthetics and none of my work supports traditional Darwinism. However contemporary thought in the area of aesthetics does link well and support much of the Principle. William Haines:

Oh dear. Do I regret my throw away remark about Darwin. I do apologise to you all as this isn't supposed to be a debating list cluttering up your mail boxes although the odd occasional discussion is quite stimulating.

Still, I guess I had better respond to Dominc's points.

On 22 Nov 2011, at 23:04, Dominic wrote:

it is obvious that the CSG cannot be referred to as a scientific source,

William, there is a fundamental distinction between 1) "evolution" as a proven scientific (paleo-ontological) fact: The fossil evidence of slow progress in the development of biological species over millions of years (in discrete, distinctive steps) and

Well I am glad you regard evolution as a fact. The alternative is that every species was separately and individually designed and created. In which case Adam and Eve didn't have parents as they were the first two human beings. Yet Father said they had tummy buttons and Father recently ridiculed the idea they appeared fully formed. I'll try to find the quote for you.

2) "evolution" as a hypothesis, as a model

The theory, and it is a theory, attempts to explain the fact of evolution - what the processes and mechanisms are. Darwin could only make educated guesses about this as a lot of things - such as Mendelian genetics and DNA etc. hadn't been discovered yet. He himself was fully aware that his theory didn't have enough evidence to support it. There is still a lot that hasn't been discovered and worked out yet. Of course there are errors along the way. Copernicus and Gallileo thought the planets revolved around the sun in perfect circles. It was Kepler who modified it by working out that their orbits were elliptical. And since then a lot of other refinements have been made. But one doesn't trash the earlier scientists because they didn't get it right first time. The same is true of Newtonian (sorry not an -ism) science. So why trash Darwin?

Let us remember that national socialism and communism both referred to Darwin to justify their murders.

Was that Darwin's fault if people misused his ideas? One could say the same about a number of other thinkers including the founders of religions.

Concerning the scientific aspect: Your point about spontaneous complexity and non-linear thermodynamics is a nice try, but still remains a hypothesis desperately trying to explain randomness as a "creative force".

It isn't desperate. It is pure science. But very shocking and unbelievable science. Because what one sees one cannot believe. It doesn't fit in with traditional concepts and so the original scientists were actually persecuted because people said what they had discovered was impossible. There is a program - the Secret Life of Chaos - produced by the BBC which won a documentary science prize last year. You can watch the segments on youtube. Unless you see it is hard to believe: www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK3TPvL9EyM&feature=related  I recommend Dembski's notion of "Specified Complexity" - although his ideas still need further research and attention.

I have discussed this with ID scientists and if one reads the Wiki article one can read the standard criticisms of it which point out that what he calls specified complexity can just as easily be explained by evolutionary processes as by postulating an intelligent designer. I found in conversation that ID advocates cannot explain how they can prove that something is designed.

Charles Darwin: The very rare case of a British Cain-type thinker :)

There are plenty of them don't worry! The point is how to integrate science and not say something is impossible because it doesn't conform to one's theology. That was what the Catholic church did with respect to Galileo.

1. When writing my BSc-Thesis in physics and physiology I did research about Biophotons (ultra-weak cell radiation used for intra-cellular communication). One of the typcial neo-darwinistic interpretations after the Human Genome project was that about 50% of human DNA is non-coding (repetetive sequences) "junk DNA". Humans have a much higher percentage of "junk DNA" than mustard weed (11%), worms (7%) or fruit flies (3%). Of course, after all those millions of random mutations some junk must accumulate in higher species, why not?

Then physicists found that exactly those tracks of repetetive sequences in the DNA actually serve as a nano-scale exciplex-laser system. Since most of biophotons have been detected within the nucleus it turns out that the "junk DNA" in fact is a highly sensitive radio transmitter and - receiver, governing the ~100,000/s reactions within the cell. Now this is top-notch science bringing biology back into the 21st century. But you know what William, Neo-Darwinists haven't done their physics homework and hence the narrow-mindedness and dogmatism. (By the way, we are talking physics here, not UC theology.) It usually takes about 50 years before the revolutions in science become mainstream...

2. I do distinguish between the person of Charles Darwin and his ideas, and "Darwin-ism" as an ideology and established dogma that has many other contributors. To be more precise we may use the term Neo-Darwinism which will include modern findings of genetics and molecular biology.

3. Who is trashing Darwin? Neo-Darwinism has been very succesful on the level of micro- evolution (strengthening of beneficial genetic characteristics within a given species) e.g. with bacteria and microbes, but not on the level of macro-evolution (genetic changes that lead to NEW species). Neo-darwinistic principles just don't apply to the fossil evidence. (E.g. the "Cambrian Explosion". The funny thing is: You don't find this "detail" in school books or newspapers.)

E.g. For years we have done experiments with genetically manipulated fruit flies (drosophila melanogaster). We've seen all sorts of malformations, but no new species. Same true for bacteria and microbes. If theories hold on to dogmas, they trash themselves.

4. William, I was not referring to any theological problem, but a scientific one: Any dogma - whether religious, social or scientific - is poison to the evolution of science and progress.

And the dogma of Neo-Darwinism states: "Life with ALL its structures, systems, cycles, networks, beauty, synergy, synchronicity, design, consciousness, creativity, etc. can be explained perfectly by random mutation and Darwinian principles." and "Spirit, mind, love, consciousness are fundamentally products of chemistry" (established paradigm in neurobiology). However, the dogma of self-emergence still contradicts the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which in essence is a mathematical principle. That is the exact reason why science still puzzles about the question: "How did life originate?" There have been many interesting models (e.g. hypercycles), but no proofs and by far no repetition of the event where life could be formed out of dead matter. (Even the highly celebrated Miller-Urey- experiment doesn't represent the proper attributes of the early Earth's atmosphere and a handful of aminoacids is still galaxies apart from highly synergetic DNA-RNA-cycles or cell nucleus- membrane-systems).

5. I regard Wikipedia a low scientific authority (much lower than CSG...:-) when it comes to controversial topics. After all I.D. does not equal creationism. Although the mass media (including Wikipedia), mainstream science or Dawkins would like to have it that way.

6. Sorry I don't want your list to end in the spam folder, but I do think people shouldn't just swallow blindly what is presented on the table of mass media.

I am not a biologist, but I would suggest if you or intelligent design advocates like Dembski want to get traction with the scientific community, you need to engage with what information theorists, physicists and mathematicians have been saying over the last few decades. Dembski's ideas seem to pass their contributions by like ships in the night. What is confusing for me is that, having "defined" his concept of "specified complexity", the main thrust of his argument appears to be to back up the assertion that the observed levels of specified complexity in the world exceed what the laws of physics permit. But to make his argument work, he seems to want to replace "entropy" with his "specified complexity" in the second law of thermodynamics. Unfortunately physics doesn't allow such sleight of hand to be passed off as a new "law".

But even if he is right (somethings which I doubt many mathematicians or physicists would entertain), he has done nothing to explain where this complexity came from or how it is maintained (and presumably multiplied). We have only a hypothesis that there must be some exogenous intelligence which gives rise to the complexity. That may be philosophically interesting, and invite speculation of a theological nature, but it says nothing new about the nature of intelligence or of design from a scientific standpoint. So, it would appear scientists have been wise to ignore him.

In short Dembski's is a "God of the gaps" argument whereby an attempt is made to establish that the way the world is cannot be explained on the basis of existing scientific laws, from which it is concluded that there must exist an intelligence beyond science.

I guess William is welcome to his apology but that would be for paraphrasing as opposed to quoting elements in print which support much of my concerns and more. However to run up a line of quotes smells more like some inquisitional trial and this is not the point.

This is the point: In a number of posts I have found few answers or pertinent responses forth coming. In opening a platform regarding Abel-type German idealism and cain type British Empiricism the response wandered to Nietzsche and out to Marx and beyond, none of whom relate in any way to Weimar Classism. Most recently I find Catholicism used to support the acceptance of Darwinism/evolution despite the fact Catholicism can be seen as deeply flawed and is not the Principle (ee th equte below). Such broad argumentation continues in such vein i.e.

“William: As Dominic noted, Darwinism supports/underpins National Socialism and Communism. This is irrelevant. All kinds of theories can be used to support all kinds of social theories and systems. As far as the history of ideas is concerned, evolution was not Darwin's idea. It is has been part of the fabric of English thought and historiography.”

Yes indeed: Here it is also suggests the misuse of Darwinism is not his fault. However Darwinism was selected because his limited materialistic philosophy was well suited to National Socialism and Communism not because people misused his thinking and because it is totally relevant. In terms of the British tradition a number of philosophers are used in support of various themes but this goes back to the empirical-idealistic argument where empiricism is described as a theory of knowledge emerging from only sensory experience an dis Cain type. In plain terms, Hume advocated such a type of epistemology and introduces not only relativity but extreme skepticism locked within the constructs of the individual. This is the problem; the examination of parts and closed systems lying divorced from the broader field of realities in which we participate.

In my posts I have mentioned concepts such as protoconsciousness and archetype. Not one word came back regarding this. Yet in questions regarding the philosophy of resemblance in UCT this is the all important interface for our concerns.

In UCT / Ontology we find two important ideas 1. The individual truth body and 2. The connected body ...but connected to what and how? In the theory of resemblance (a word which implies process and choice to my way of thinking) we find not only connectivity but a sense of purpose embedded in Ontology which looks at the relational and purposeful world of creation. In DP the creator and creation are systematically expressed by ideas such as dual characteristic and reciprocal relationships - so the question seems to ask, what is the nature of the creator and what are the characteristics of what is created?

In the theory of the original image a divine image is proposed. There is Sungsang (intellect emotion and will) and there is Hungsang (plans, math, blueprints) all of which is subsumed under the quality of heart. However Sungsang and Hyungsang relate dynamically and from this union, Logos emerges. (first examined by Heraclitus and possibly influenced by Oriental thinking concerning Yang-Yin and by Neo-Confucians with Li Chi - page 5 UCT 1981)

What Is Logos? It is defined as pre-plan / pre-energy, (law and reason) which lies at the root of creation. When all is set Logos explodes as it were into creation, the universe unfolds in stages of well thought out and heartistic processes. The conclusion moves to the relationship lying between man and God. So what of this supposed relationship?

German idealism concludes with a series of by design descriptions. Some of which are discussed by SMM and others which appear in UCT and in Papers written by UTS Graduates - “Evolution and Unification Thought” www.utitokyo.sakura.ne.jp/uti-index-papers-english01.html

Terms such as field energy, archetypes, and protoconsciousness are particularly relevant to our understanding here. (Archetypes = stages or spiral development, the self and individuation, family, community, psychological stages of marriage, culture, systems etc.) This is our interface, our connection to original ideas, which requires development. Additionally, all this points to questions relating to ‘Universal Prime Force’ and the stages of development described as ‘Indirect and direct dominion.’ Field energy describes the reality of the cell as being embedded in a broader field of energy and information. Is this in anay way deterministic? It is described by German idealism and by Alfred North Whitehead, who also used the term protoconsciousness, - as meaning we exist in and participate in field consciousness. We have enough flexibility in the system so that when it becomes more complex, freedom and choice are built in and emerge naturaly into the human condition. Additional, Whitehead proposes we are led not by coercion but by love. Whitehead was very attractive to early thinkers in the Principle tradition. In evolution none of this is proposed (see: DNA pp.. 48-51 UC T ) because it is a materialistic, biological and closed system of thought. In this way so-called spontaneous or self-generated orders, random change and chance are also part of limited materialistic thinking standing proud and separate. Whereas so-called randomness is described by Principle as a designed element as well; here Whitehead agrees. It is seemingly random to the intellect which separates reality into fragments but to synthetic thinking so-called randomness belongs to a broader field. On each day, God said, “Let there be….” And it was so. And God saw that it was good (Gen. 1:3-31). This means that all things were created according to the ideas and concepts He had in His mind.

Laws (Principles): In the Divine Principle it is written, “God made the world and carried out His providence according to the Principle”

In the Bible it is written that God made all things with the Word (John 1:1-3). According to the Divine Principle, the Word is Logos (DP , 170). Also it is written that “Since God, the subject partner of the Logos, exists with dual characteristics, the Logos as His object partner should also be composed of dual characteristics. If the Logos were without dual characteristics, all things made through it would not be composed of dual characteristics” (DP , 170-171).

Dual characteristics, and precise and well defined speciation lies at the heart of the Principle. This is opposed by Darwin however Adam and Eve having parents have DNA elements substantially changed at the point o ftheir origin and a very different and new species entered the Principled landscape by the mechanisms related to Logos and protoconsciousness. Darwin knew nothing about this. Morphing as he proposed, is totally contradicted by Principles. Species do not morph - they are particular and unique.

Universal prime force: Although this is a principle of existence, in order to explain the formation of the universe, people have irresponsibly come up with the theory of evolution, which is a load of rubbish. At this point, we need to acknowledge the fact that original universal power creates the energy of interaction of all existence. (117-74, 1982.2.1) SMM- Book 11

In the protoconscious model CG Jung (He dug deeply into the Weimar tradition) in co-operation with physicists such as Pauli finally stated human consciousness ‘recedes into carbon.’ He points to the cell and its carbon base as containing both mental and physical interactive components. Thus linking mankind to the broader world of ideas or as a Unificationist might say to the mind/heart of God. In developmental psychology the same conclusion is reached where even the unconscious (the primary chaos of creative impulses is described as holding to a set of almost indistinguishable patterns but patterns nevertheless - the hidden order of art) In later studies in developmental biology advanced thinkers and scientists also embrace field energy. (see biologists-Sole and Goodwin, Edelman and Tononi-consciousness, Woese- microbiology, many others) These scientists are all moving today towards Principles-dual characteristics. Microevolution - the description of certain limited physical mechanisms in evolution might be integrated into Principles but only if elements from the above post are carefully worked through and added to this field. Macroevolution remains a complete anathema to Principles. Argumentation swirling around European traditions is often no more than smoke and mirrors. Williams post on Mary Midgely, for example, was entirely mistaken - she is described as a moral philosopher not an Intelligent design advocate. Indeed in her book ‘Evolution as Religion’ she took a strong stance against Richard Dawkins, a radical materialist who calls God a delusion.

If the Principle is continually defined using Rabbinical tradition, Christian or Greek thought Catholicism, Hume, Other British empiricists and so on, the failure in terms of coming to terms with Principles is both immense and divisive as it would be under Hume’s methodology. What is lacking is a relevant discussion, accurate an dproperly defined commentaries and with some serious thinking as to what the Principle means and how it might authentically be described, developed and presented. What remains crucial in DP and in UC Thought is the link running from Logos (see a being of logos - http://www.unification-thought.org/neut/Neut03.html#top) to the cellular interface of the protoconscious cell. What also requires definition are the elements of “randomness” and questions relating to free will, to creativity and the question of man’s relationship to his creator; the ultimate questions of ontology, axiology, and ethics - determinism or otherwise an dhow otherwise might unfold. (again perhaps Whitehead)

This is what is lost in the continuing confusing argumentation, as it stands, in areas such as this, “I said I think the Principle is more compatible with the theory of evolution than it is with intelligent design.” Many, especially younger members and newly introduced guests coming to the Principle will end up not knowing what the Principle is; a spiritual tradition informed by science or materialistic, random relativity. I would like to see Principles discussed per se and extraneous material reframed as it were carefully so that Darwin, Hume, Catholicism and all other systems of thought do not end up posing as some alternate syncretistic Principle. As stated, the Principle defines all earlier systems not the other way round. The question still stands unanswered - what are we teaching here?

Re some references; Catholicism and Darwinism - “The realm of Christian culture, which has been part of history since medieval times, was thrown into greatest confusion by humanistic doctrines. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, with humanism as its basis, played a major role in destroying Christianity, tying and hanging it by the neck. This theory claimed there was no God.” SMM.

Basis for protoconsciousness: “Today’s physics has advanced to a point where it is asserting dualism, that all atoms have awareness. This logic is similar in essence to the Unification Church’s principle of dual characteristics.” - Cheon Seong Gyeong -Book 11

See also: Autonomy of the Principle and Protoconsciousness - Epistemology also - www.unification-thought.org/neut/Neut09.html

Man as a microcosm. God’s original nature and heart >> Logos >> protoconsciousness and cell >> Man’s original nature ------ a theory of resemblance/ participation - a missing link. The attachment is a diagram of the UCT cell

And the question; “Why is there so little on Oriental Philosophy - where’s the bridge between East and West - Li-Chi as Neo Confucianists frame it now, is eloquent and elegant. It also reframes science in a principled way

______________________________________________________________________________

Finally - ultimately - in the long run - in the fulness of time - as a last thought on evolution or ‘by design.’ And only if your over 16+ or secure in a marital relationship.

Three freshman-engineering students were sitting around talking between classes, when one brought up the question of who designed the human body. One of the students insisted that the human body must have been designed by an electrical engineer because of the perfection of the nerves and synapses. Another disagreed, and exclaimed that it had to have been a mechanical engineer who designed the human body. The system of levers and pulleys is ingenious. "No," the third student said, "you're both wrong. The human body was designed by an architect. Who else but an architect would have put a toxic waste line through a recreation area?"

Derek, you said, "In my posts I have mentioned concepts such as protoconsciousness and archetype. Not one word came back regarding this."

The reason I haven't responded is two-fold. First of all this isn't a debating or discussion list so I don't want to fill everyone's mail boxes up with posts which go from one topic to another. Over the years, (I have been sending out newspaper articles on and off for 15 years but only recently added you to my list) we have had the odd short interesting discussion about a particular article. The article this one arose out of was about the Eurozone but seems to have transmogrified into one about Darwinism and me. The other reason is that I actually agree with what you write about Weimer classicism and protoconsciousness etc. and don't want to prolong this thread by engaging with it.

"Williams post on Mary Midgely, for example, was entirely mistaken - she is described as a moral philosopher not an Intelligent design advocate. Indeed in her book ‘Evolution as Religion’ she took a strong stance against Richard Dawkins, a radical materialist who calls God a delusion."

I am afraid you have again distorted what I said. This is what I said about Mary Midgely: "Midgely herself took what I regard as a sensible position critical of the dogmatism of both atheistic Darwinists and proponents of creationism and intelligent design."

If you want to check if what I said about her is accurate you can do so here: www.philosophynow.org/issue64/A_Plague_On_Both_Their_Houses

This is Mary Midgely's article which the link didn't go through to because of subscription

Mary Midgley thinks creationists and evolutionists need to overcome the bewitchment of their own thinking and learn how to talk to each other.

Intelligent Design Theory, which claims to provide a scientific rationale for Creationism, is now highly popular in the United States and is gaining ground in Britain. Considered as science it is apparently vacuous, yet its influence is growing rapidly. We surely need to try and understand this phenomenon.

The theory does not, as one might expect, merely aim to add a spiritual dimension to supplement accepted biological views, which would be quite unobjectionable. Intelligent Design (ID) is presented firmly as a scientific theory to displace existing ones. Its central point is that living things are so ‘irreducibly complex’ that they cannot have evolved gradually by natural selection. They must therefore have had a designer. He might not be supernatural – he might even be an alien being – but the special biological kind of complexity could not have arisen without him.

What makes the complexity irreducible is that a biological device is composed of parts which must all be present if it is to work. The comparison often given is to a mousetrap, which can’t work till all its parts are combined. Various integrated natural systems are also held to consist of parts which must have been brought together by some other agency before natural selection could begin working on them, since natural selection can only work on something that’s already functioning. Thus, their development cannot be explained without a designer.

Biologists have pointed out the feebleness of the mechanical analogy, of course. Organisms and their parts do not consist of separate items that must be put together deliberately in the workshop, but of continuous tissue, areas of which often have several different functions and can shift between them by what is called ‘co-option’. No helpful designer was needed in order to provide a cow with a fly-whisk: cows themselves acquired one merely by using a rather undifferentiated tail in a new way. But the public which is impressed by ID theory does not read these replies.

The disturbing feature about ID theory is its open imperialism. It inserts a Creator not as a metaphysical background but as a necessary part of the physical process. Thus it tries to reactivate the old idea of a stark epistemological Cold War, a contest for dominance between science and religion.

During the last half-century, that military method of ‘progress in understanding’ has been going out of favour, because it plainly darkened counsel. Its competitiveness made it very hard for people to see the many less extreme positions that lay open to them. Sensible students have therefore increasingly agreed with the great evolutionist Theodosius Dobzhansky that science and religion cannot clash because their functions are different. Science, said Dobzhansky, deals in facts, while religion deals in meaning. And moreover, as Einstein put it, religion without science is lame, while science without religion is blind.

Any apparent clashes between the two must therefore arise either from faulty religion or faulty science, or both. They don’t call for war, but for a better understanding. For instance, believers celebrating God as Creator need not be trying to smuggle an illicit set of dubious variables into the realm of scientific facts. They may simply be trying to show the whole natural realm in a different light, as pervaded by the divine. Insights like this are, of course, somewhat mysterious, which is why (as William James pointed out) religious experiences vary widely and why different cultures express them through different visions. Some of those powerful visions do not use the concept of God at all; three of the world’s great religions, Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism, dispense with it. And those which do use it understand it in many different ways. Because of this variety, if the visions are taken crudely and literally, they can seem to clash. But all the great traditions have recognised that the visions, though necessary, are by their nature partial, tentative and incomplete. None of them ought to be seen as exclusive and final.

The parties in today’s Cold War will, however, accept no such awestruck open-mindedness. Both opt for simple and final certainty. On the religious side, fundamentalists stand by the stark claim which they first made just over a century ago – that the Scriptures, literally read, are infallible. This attitude expresses a deep devotion to the Bible going far beyond what has been normal in Protestantism – a devotion that is characteristically American. This devotion probably arose at first because so many immigrants to the US had been persecuted for their religion before leaving Europe, and their religion was one of the few things they had to sustain them in their stressful new life. Thus it is not strange that they clung so hard to it, or that they resisted scientific doctrines which seemed to clash with it, such as discoveries about the age of the Earth and Darwin’s suggestions about evolution. So in the late nineteenth century, many American churches strongly opposed such doctrines, and since those churches had wide influence, this opposition resonated in politics as well.

Not surprisingly, this campaign provoked a response. Anti-scientific fundamentalism generated its mirror-image, the dogmatic ‘scientific atheism’ of sages like John Draper and Andrew Dickson White. And today this same stimulus is producing this same conditioned anti-religious response. Yet it is a response which distorts the whole controversy.

It should surely be obvious that there is nothing scientific about atheism. God’s existence is not a question for the tests of physical science; it belongs to metaphysics. What is wrong with fundamentalism is not its theism – theists do not need to take this line – but its sheer irrelevance. Fundamentalism is a perverse attempt to use a particular, bronze-age Hebrew vision of God to resolve factual questions in science and history. Opponents who answer fundamentalism on its own terms by arguing against this mixed project as a package-deal merely perpetuate its characteristic confusion between the realms of fact and meaning.

Today, that confusion is clearly doing actual harm. Enquiries about why people are now so willing to embrace Creationism tend to show that they accept it because they see it as the only alternative to something they call ‘scientific atheism’ or (still more misleadingly) ‘Darwinism’. This is an ideology that has indeed some roots in Social Darwinism (which Darwin himself always disowned), but it has been elaborated since Victorian times by the visions of several popular science writers which dramatize the notion of natural selection in new ways. Jacques Monod gave natural selection an existentialist flavour, exalting humans as heroic rebels in the cosmos, aliens mysteriously cut off from the rest of nature. Richard Dawkins and E.O. Wilson added a Thatcherite nuance by their rather strange choice of the term ‘selfish’ for the productivity of genes. Both writers, of course, claim that this was never more than an insignificant metaphor – yet both of them often use it quite naïvely in a literal sense (eg “we are born selfish”), and there is no doubt that this is how it is has reached the public. It accords too with their general one-sided emphasis on fierce competition rather than co-operation as the basic force of life – something drawn from T.H. Huxley rather than Darwin. These elements add up to a blankly individualistic ideology, strongly redolent of the 1980s. This may have its own point – but, to repeat, it is certainly not science.

Orthodox science thus becomes discredited by being falsely identified with something that is really quite irrelevant to it – a kind of ‘Darwinism’ which is not only anti-religious but starkly anti-humane. Undoubtedly this makes the Creation-peddlers’ work a great deal easier. They still, however, have a grave problem in trying to find an alternative view which will look sufficiently like science to evade the American Constitution’s ban on the teaching of religion in schools, but will still be unscientific enough to deliver their message. ID Theory is the latest item on this production-line, and it seems so flimsy that it is hard to see how it can impose itself on anyone. Yet it does, because without some firm understanding of the relation between facts and meaning, people have little defence against such impositions. Can somebody suggest a way to make that understanding easier? Could the people engaged in teaching these two crucial subjects somehow consult together to find better ways of explaining the relation between these two aspects of life? Unless something like this can be done, it seems to me that ID is going to give us a great deal of trouble.

Mary Midgley lectured at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne until 1980. Among her best known books are Beast and Man, Wickedness, The Ethical Primate and Science and Poetry.

• Mary Midgley expands on the themes in this article in a new pamphlet. Impact Pamphlet 15: Intelligent Design and Other Ideological Problems by Mary Midgley, ISBN 0-902227-17-3, is obtainable from Sarah Moore

Intelligent Design Theorists • M.J. Behe, Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, New York, The Free Press, 2003. • W.A. Dembski, The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance Through Small Probabilities, Cambridge University Press, 1998 and No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased Without Intelligence, Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.

Critics • R.T. Pennock,‘The Pre-Modern Sins of Intelligent Design’, in The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science, ed. P. Clayton and Z. Simpson, 2006. • Michael Ruse, The Evolution-Creation Struggle, Harvard University Press 2005, pp.250-287.

Sorry, Colin, as a physicist I am not committed to please the current scientific community (which does not represent one opinion anyways) and prevailing doctrines, but my commitment is towards objectivity, fair research conditions and the possibility of verification and falsification of long-held theories. It has been the courageous who brought the paradigm- shifts that have spurred the progress of science (and not the "bricks in the wall"). And by the way: The list of physicists who don't readily swallow Darwinism as it is, is a long one. (Please note the difference between dogmatic Darwinism and paleontological evolution.)

It makes me wonder when facts are being mixed up with hypothesis. Yet, in the case of Darwinism there are plenty of cases where the fossil evidence simply contradicts the assumptions and predictions (e.g. punctuated equilibrium vs. phletic gradualism, etc.). And it just makes me sad to see how my science has often been misused. Darwinists have casually claimed that their version of evolution is totally based on physcial and chemical laws - without necessarily having understood their foundations. (In physics we start off assuming there are natural laws and that we can understand and describe them. Where they come from is left to the philosophers and theologians, but we do have the right to wonder about them in awe.)

The problem with putting Darwinism under the authoritive umbrella of mathematics/physics is: You don't find the hyptheses of Darwinism approved by the exact sciences anywhere. Life is simply more than a mathematical or chemical/physical formula. And life has to do with information. But information has to do with consciousness.

The reproducability of an experiment or event is a major element in the method of exact sciences in order to test the accuracy of a hypothesis. Everyone knows that historical sciences (including all theories of evolution) have a difficult time with delivering the hard facts, leaving lots of space to speculation and various theories (which lies in its nature). E.g. The emergence of life out of dead matter has yet to be reproduced. The same is true for emergences of new species based on already existing genetic material (respecting the definition of species, so cloning excempt).

Darwinism has proven to be restrictive in genetics, hastingly and lazily declaring those repetitive 50% of DNA-sequences as "junk", blinded by its own hypothesis. From a design- perspective we took a closer look and made new discoveries: the DNA as a hightech tele- communication center... Presenting ID as a "God of the gap"-theory is misinterpreting and redifining ID. Having a "god of randomness filling the gaps" is a belief just as well. So I.D. is much more transparent in declaring its hypothesis ("complex specified information is a product of design") from the outset, instead of hiding it. Darwinism has yet to explain the points of sudden increase in information (=emergence of new finished species) over the course of time contrary to its assumption of a gradual smooth evolution randomly guided.

The fundamental difference between I.D. and Darwinism is simple: They use different hypotheses as starting point. One declares it, the other one hides it. I appreciate the sincerity and clarity of ID about its hypothesis, it makes it just more credible. There is no further agenda behind it. The deeper nature or origin of the "designer" is no issue at all in ID, just as the "god of randomness" isn't mentioned any further in Darwinism. (Although there are a couple of things, you'd like to ask "him"...)

Dembski tries to mathematically define the notions of necessity, chance and design. With this attempt he challenges old-held views and rises questions of proper definitions. That is what spurs scientific progress and its evolution. Dembski's attempt is a mathematical and information- theoretical one (he is not touching upon thermodynamics or other laws of physics, Collin). When we see buildings of the Rennaissance or modern constructions, we think "amazing". But when we see the human brain, we say "well, we were lucky." Doesn't anybody see the irony here?

And talking of social/ideological consequences of Darwinism: How do you define human dignity, if, after all, we are a random chemical product. And this is exactly the point of which Hitler, Marx, Stalin, Pol Pot, Che Guevara took advantage of.

In physics we usually draw a very clear line between what we can know/measure (eg. within the macroscopic and microscopic boundaries), what we might know/measure (eg. hypothetic particles going beyond quarks, Higgs-boson etc) and what we cannot know/measure (eg. anything beyond the big bang). I don't see this modesty and sincerity in today's mainstream biology, where assumptions are declared as fact and challengers are misrepresented and ridiculed.

Please don't expel intelligence from science... :)

I feel it necessary to question what our friend Colin is trying to convey when he says: "Unfortunately physics doesn't allow such sleight of hand to be passed off as a new law". Is Colin saying that physics itself is the ultimate cause and final influence as to the state of all things, and that physics itself gives permission to the emergence of new things or that it prohibits it? We know through quantum physics and of what we know about the nature of light that physics itself is not the ultimate cause allowing or prohibiting particular manouvres. Yet light itself also is not the ultimate cause. Maybe Colin is making the assumption that the laws of physics, as he understands them today, do not allow such things to take place? Yet, with the newly discovered scientific fact that certain particles can in fact travel faster than the speed of light, is it really a sure thing to say that 'physics doesn't allow' this or that according to his degree of scientific understanding today?

I favour the deductive method. By taking supposed laws and principles and testing them in diverse systems we will discover which of those proposed laws and principles apply to all of the systems through which they have been tested. If a particular law or principle does not hold firm in any one of the diverse systems, we should discard it from further experiments. Yet also it will be good to keep note of discarded supposed laws and principles in case we find need to test them agan later. By rigorously testing various laws and principles in this manner, we can eventally whittle down the number of potential laws and principles to the very minimum. The discarded supposed laws and principles may actually be temporal laws and principles but as such are subjected to the influence of absolute laws and principles. Therefore, finding the absolute laws and principles is the primary objective and motivation. The supposed laws and principles remaining and which hold firm in all the systems through which they have been tested are potential absolute laws and principles. Considering these, we can then move on to more complex theories and concepts.

Our friend Colin talks about God, but I question if Colin has in fact tested the theory or concept that God exists by actually practicing the very laws and principles which religious and spiritual traditions throughout the ages have taught us are the ways to meet God. Has Colin moved his stream of thought concerning God's existence beyond a purely theoretical or intellectual one and into one of practice? And what level of research has Colin poured into his theories of God's existence or non-existence? I personally did study a wide range of religious and spiritual traditions for over twelve years, while also researching much regarding the sciences of human life and the universe. I dedicated myself completely to that task during this period of serious study and experimentation in my life, and I finally concluded that God exists. My results were not based on belief or personal desire; I only wanted to find the absolute truth, and if that meant discovering that God doesn't exist then 'so be it' was my determination. If one does the research, one will finally conclude with the same results. There is enough scientific evidence to prove that God exists through intellectual thinking and I don't care if people tell me there isn't because it will just go to show that they haven't done the research. What I lacked was experience of God. This is what all people are lacking! This is why people question if God exists or not; It is not due to a lack of information.

I would like to add that this email is not about Colin personally. I simply took this good opportunity to share these thoughts with you. Colin here, as well as himself, represents all people who are in similar shoes, or flip-flops. I would like to thank Colin as well as yourself Dominic for your efforts to discover the truth. May we all meet at there at the Centre one day!

As I said I am not a biologist and my previous comments, you will note, were neither about biology nor about Darwinism. I think one must be careful in making inferences about biology starting from a standpoint of maths and physics. If Dembski wishes to do this he needs to ground his arguments properly in an established branch of maths and/or physics. This he unfortunately has not done (see below). He has from his CV only two publications in reputable refereed journals of information theory or probability and these relate only peripherally to his arguments about intelligent design and "specified complexity".

In an un-refereed paper written in collaboration with his colleague Marks II and pretentiously called "Life's Conservation Law," he offers what appears to be his main attempt to ground the intelligent design argument in a rigorous information theoretical background. He proposes the "Law of Conservation of Information" as a law of science in the sense of being "universal in scope, hold[ing] with unfailing regularity, and find[ing] support from a wide array of facts and observations." Clearly in presenting his case in this way, he has in mind the grounding of the macroscopic, generally applicable Second Low of Thermodynamics (irreducibility of entropy) in information theory arguments ralating to the probability of realisation of microscopic states. Sadly, his promised "law" turns out not to be such at all, but rather an attempt to extrapolate from three rather narrowly specified theorems he claims to have proved to a wider class of problems, effectively by analogy.

Also the only significant "application" of his law appears to be (perhaps not surprisingly) to back up his claim that DNA could not have arisen by Darwinian evolution alone but required an "intelligent designer". And, as I have intimated, to make that argument tell he has to cross the boundaries from maths to physics to chemistry to biology. For those already sympathetic to his project to pass off intelligent design theory as science, his bold claims and Herculean efforts may be enough to win their acclaim. But the consensus (nay, almost total unanimity) of the scientific community (who remain sticklers for rigorous argument, compelling evidence and refereed journals) appears to be that he has not succeeded in his enterprise and that his style of argumentation by analogy, asserting that we might "legitimately expect to prove... a family of theorems sharing certain common features" to fill the gaps, is just not compelling enough. Finally, re the comments below, "necessity" and "chance" are concepts with long established definitions in mathematics. "Design" is not a mathematical category and I'm not sure how it could usefully become one, any more than "intelligence" could. Besides, while philosophy "attempts" to define things, mathematics is only really mathematics to the extent that it successfully establishes definitions, and then draws logical conclusions therefrom. The persuasiveness of mathematics arises from the rigour of the logic applied, not from whether we like the direction in which an argument appears to be leading. My strong suspicion is that whatever traction Dembski gets is from the latter, not the former.

You might also like to suggest, Dominic, how Dembski's argument about the (apparent) existence of specified complexity implying intelligent design could be falsified before committing yourself to it...